How are concepts of the body represented in a social or cultural context? Starting with this question, this book presents an interdisciplinary insight into the history of gender, using contexts from the Middle Ages up to the present day. These contributions take a look not only at historical discourses of the body, but also at processes of the production, the practise, the affirmation, as well as the subversion of body identities throughout history: How did gendered body representations and physical performance coexist in different historical epochs? How did individuals and social groups relate to hegemonic gender and body norms? How do physical experiences and effective cultural body discourses interblend? What specific functions do gender images of the body have in rhetoric based on power and cultural politics?